A03 Forensics

Question 1

Offender profiling - Top down approach

Answer 1

+ research support
CANTER ET AL conducted analysis of 100 US murders each committed by a different serial killer. smallest space analysis used (identifies correlations across different samples of behaviour). analysis used to assess co occourence of aspects of serial killiings. eg tourture, weapon used, cause of death. are features of serial killings which match FBIs typology of organised offenders.
CP: NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE (organised + disorganised). variety of combos at murder scenes. hard to classify as one or the other. eg. killer may have high sexual comptency but leaves body at crime scene.

+ real life application
can be applied to other types of crime (burglary)
85% rise in solved cases in 3 US states. used organised and disorganised but also 2 new categories added: interpersonal (offender usually knows victim and steals smth significant) and opportunistic (inexperienced young offender).

-flawed evidence
used 36 offenders (one including ted bundy) 25 of them were serial killers and 11 of them were killed once or twice. 24 organised and 12 disorganised.
sample was too small and no randomness. interview also had no structure to it so not comparable. NOT SCIENTIFIC.

Question 2

Offender profiling - bottom up approach

Answer 2

+ scientific measures
due to statisical analysis used. many supporting studies have used smallest space analysis to establish correlations between 2 variables.

+supporting evidence
Canter collated info from 120 murderers involving serial killers from the US. smallest space analysis revealed spatial consistency in behaviour in killers. eg it helped to recognise where the disposal of bodies are in comparison to their home base (created a circular base around it). more noticeable for mauraders.

+ evidence for investigative psychology
Canter conducted an analysis of 66 sexual assault cases. Data was examined using smallest space analysis. Each person displayed characteristic patterns of such behaviours and this can help to establish whether 2 ore more offences were committed by the same person (case linkage). supports idea that people are consistent in their behaviours.
CP: not all murderers are consistent w their behaviours, some only commit a crime once for example.

Question 3

Biological explanation - Historical approach

Answer 3

+ changed face of study over time
lombrosoknown for the father of modern crimonology. shifted crime away from moralistic discourse (in which offenders were seen to be weak minded) to a more scientific position. also in trying to describe how particular types of people are likely to commit crimes.

-poorly controlled
didnt compare sample to non offenders, couldve contolled for confounding variables eg. couldve measured links between crime and poverty which could explain it more scientifically

• crisitsed by other researchers
  for having rascist undertones to research which is socially sensitive, and also biased.
  by saying that dark skin and curly hair is more likely to be found by african descent.
• contradictory evidence
  between ativism and crime. Goring tried to find out ab physical atypical factors about offenders. between 3000 offenders and non offenders. found no differences between both groups. challenges idea that offenders can be physically distinguished from the rest of the population.

Question 4

Biological explanation - genetic and neural

Answer 4

Genetic:
+ research support for diathesis stress model
MEDNRICK’s study of 13000 danish adoptees was conducted. 13.5% of adoptees whose neither biological nor adoptive parents had convictions. 20% for those whose parents had a criminal record. 24.5% of adoptees who had biological and adoptive parents had crimincal records. therefore environments have an influence as well as inheritance.

• biological reductionist and lack of free will
  crimes are complex and whole individuals should be accounted for. free will is also not accounted for. judge system bases it off how we all have responsibility for our own actions. (can be used for both) - doesnt align with justice system.

Neural:
+ evidence for frontal lobe
Kandel and Freed saw evidence that damage to the frontal lobe shows more aggressive behaviours and less remorse and impulsive unemotional behaviours. eg case of Phineas Ghage ( rod if frontal lobe -became more aggressive). frontal lobe is also associated w planning. brain damage could be causal. valid.

-socially sensitive
ppl who have reduced levels of neurotransmitters or dysfunctional brain activities may be wrongly accused of being an offender.

Question 5

Psychological theory - Eysencks theory

Answer 5

+ evid for support of criminal personality
eysenck and eysenck comparaed 2070 prisoner scores on his personality questionairre w 2422 on measures - extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism across all age groups were sampled. prisoners recorded high on average scores than controls
CP: farringdon et al conducted meta analysis of relevant studies and found that offenders tend to score higher on psychoticism but not for extraversion and neuroticism. and inconsistent evid from EEGs about introverts and extroverts. therefore central assumptions are challenged.

• cultural differences/ factors
  Bartol studied hispanic and african american prisoners in a high security prison. divided criminals off 6 groups based on their offender history. found that all 6 groups were less extravert than the non offender control group. which doesnt match the theory. sample was a very different cultural group to what Eysenck.
  therefore cultural factors arent taken into account and theory cant be generalised

-too simplistic
explains that all offending behaviour can be explained by personality traits alone.

• bad measurement of personality
  crime is too complex to just measure on a score and for it to be quantified.

Question 6

Psychological explanations: Cognitive

Answer 6

• Gender Bias (Alpha/Beta Bias):
  Kohlberg’s original research was conducted only on males. Critics (like Carol Gilligan) argue that this makes the theory androcentric. It might not explain female offending behaviour accurately, as women may operate on a different “moral compass” based on care rather than just justice.
• Descriptive vs. Explanatory
  While cognitive theories are great at describing the criminal mind (e.g., they have a hostile attribution bias), they are less successful at explaining why those thoughts occurred in the first place. Critics argue these theories describe the “offender’s mind” but don’t explain the initial cause of the behaviour, unlike biological or social learning explanations.

Cognitive distortions
+ real world application
to therapy. CBT aims to challenge irrational thinking. offenders are encouraged to face up what they have done and establish a less distorted view of their actions. Harkins suggest that redcued incidence of denial and minimalisation in therapy is highly associated w reduced risk of reoffending, acceptance is thought to be very important in rehabilitation.

• Individual Differences in Moral Reasoning A limitation is that the level of moral reasoning can depend on the type of offence. For instance, Thornton and Reid (1982) found that individuals who committed crimes for financial gain (like robbery) were more likely to show preconventional moral reasoning than those who committed impulsive crimes (like assault). This suggests the theory may not apply to all types of crime.
• doesnt account for biological
  evironmentally deterministic

Question 7

**

Psychological Theory - Differential association theory

Answer 7

+ when it was first published it changed the focus of offending explanations
Sutherland was successful in deterring the main focus of biological explanations for example lombroso’s atavistic therory and other theories that explained offending as individual weakness/ immorality. differential association theory draws attention to the fact that deviant social circumstances and environments may be more to blame for offending than just deviant people. better as it provides more than just eugenics (biology).
CP: however, runs the risk of stereotyping individuals who come from crime-ridden backgrounds as unavoidably offenders. ignores the fact that people may not chose to offend despite such influences.

• hard to test the predictions
  Sutherland wanted this to be scientific however its not testable. Bc it cant be operationalised. hard to see how the number of pro-crime attitudes a person has could be measured. similarly theory is based on assumption that pro-crime values outweigh anti-crime ones.

+can account for offending within all sectors of society
Sutherland understood that some types of offences such as burglary may be clustered within certain working class communities and more affluent groups, however he was interested in the white collar crime - may be a feature in middle class social groups who share deviant norms and values. generalisable to all types of communities.

Question 8

Psychological Theory - Psychodynamic

Answer 8

-CORRELATION vs CAUSATION (Bowlby):
Bowlby’s “44 Thieves” study is flawed.
While Bowlby found a link between maternal deprivation and “affectionless psychopathy,” this is only a correlation. Other factors, such as poverty or poor living conditions in the institutions, could have caused the criminal behaviour, not just the separation from the mother.

• Gender bias
  Main assumption is that girls develop a weaker superego than boys due to their identification with their mums not being as strong. this is because girls dont experience the intense emotion associated with castration anxiety and therefore are under less pressure to identify with their mothers. therefore according to Freud their superego is less developed, assuming that women should be more prone to offending than men. however, rates in imprisonment show that the opposite is more likely to be true. around 20x more men are in prison than women. Hoffman found that in a study to resist temptation - no gender differences and little girls were more moral than little boys.
  Alpha bias.
• untestable as based on unconscious.
  superego cant be tested just taken at face value.
  no falsification and not open to empirical testing (possibility of being disproved).
  Freuds
  not scientific and lacks objectivity.

-psychic determinsim
doesnt include biological factors eg MAOA gene. doesnt include differential association theory, environment

Question 9

Dealing with offending behaviour: Custodial sentencing

Answer 9

• negative psychological effects on prisoners
  for many offenders, imprisonment can be brutal, demeaning and generally devastating. Ministry of Justice - 119 people killed themselves in prisons in England and Wales - an increase of 32% from the previous year. Most at risk are young single men in the first 24hrs of confinement. Prison Reform Trust found that 25% of women and 15% of men in prison reported symptoms of SZ. oppressive prison regimes can be detrimental to psychological health.

CP: Prison Reform Trust didn’t include the inmates who were experiencing pre - prison psychotic symptoms. many of those convicted may have already had psychological and emotional difficulties. therefore there are confounding variables.

+ Real life application for custodial sentencing
-treatments and training
rehabilitation - offenders become better during their time in prison and lead a crime-free life when back in society due to imporved character. this can help others who have come out of prison to navigate their lives. many of them access education and employment upon release. offenders who take part in education programmers are 43% less likely to reoffend following release.

• offenders may become better offenders (custodial sentencing)
  they may undergo a more dubious education as part of their sentence. may teach younger offenders tricks from more experienced prisoners. offenders may aquire criminal contacts when they’re released. may make reoffending more likely.

Question 10

Dealing with offending behaviour: Behaviour modification in custody

Answer 10

+ research support
Hobbs and Holt introduced a token economy system with groups of young offenders across 3 units. there was a significant difference in positive behaviour in comparison to the control group, that token economy works.

+ easy to implement
no specialist profession needed - other forms of treatment such as anger management. token economy systems are easy to be designed and cost effective. can be used in real life applications such as prison systems.

• may not effect long term behaviour
  Blackburn said it ‘has little rehabilatative value’ and any positive changes made may be released when out of prison. more cognitively biased treatments eg anger managements may be more likely to lead to a permanent change. people can also play along with the token economy system just to get rewards out of it. this explains why behaviour doesn’t change.

-unethical
unethical as you are taking away something

Question 11

Dealing with offending behaviour: restorative justice

Answer 11

+ research support
Shapland found positive outcomes. eg 85% of survivors found satisfaction within meeting their offenders face to face and 78% would recommend it to others. only 2% said it makes them worse.
CP: Wood argued that restorative justice systems arent as survivor focussed as they claim to be.

+ decrease in rates of recidivism
meta analysis of strang et al compared offenders who experienced face to face restorative justice schemes with those who just experienced custodial sentencing. the restorative justice group were significantly less likely to reoffend. this was larger in offenders who convicted violent crimes than crimes against property.

-offenders may abuse the systems
it depends on the intentions of the offender - they may want to take part as they regret the hurt and pain they caused. however, they may take part due to other reasons: eg avoiding punishment and playing down their faults and even taking pride in the fact that they get to see the survivor with ftf contact.

Question 12

Dealing with offending behaviour: Anger management

Answer 12

• Requires High Motivation and Commitment
  Anger management is an intensive process that requires a high level of engagement from the offender.It involves several stages: cognitive preparation, skill acquisition, and application practice. Offenders who are “forced” into the programme as part of their sentence may simply “go through the motions” without genuinely engaging. This is a weakness compared to biological treatments (like drug therapy) which do not require the same level of active cognitive effort to be physiologically effective.
• doesnt work for all types of people and crimes committed
  Many crimes, such as financial fraud or premeditated “cold-blooded” violence, are not motivated by anger at all. If the underlying cause of the crime isn’t anger, then an anger management programme will be completely ineffective for that individual. This means it is not a “one-size-fits-all” solution for rehabilitation.

+ Comparison with Behaviour Modification
Unlike behaviour modification (like token economies), anger management addresses the thought processes (cognitive causes) behind the crime rather than just the surface behaviour.
It involves “cognitive restructuring,” where offenders learn to identify triggers.
This makes it more likely to have a long-term effect because the offender gains insight into their own behaviour, potentially reducing recidivism after they leave the controlled prison environment.

• expensive
  requires specialist training mediators who need to be in. this costs a lot and can lead to prisons not using this which can be effective.